Cooks & Gardeners: Can I Use Limp Rhubarb?

Cafe Society
1

A coworker brought in some harvested rhubarb, but he brought in the whole plant (poisonous leaves and all) and the stalks are limp. I’d love to use it in some pies, or freeze it for future use, but everything I know about rhubarb (which ain’t much) says you should use only firm stalks.

Are limp stalks garbage? Or still good enough for pies and such?

I got some firm rhubarb at the farmer’s market yesterday and made some awesome rhubarb-raspberry crisp. Yum. I’d sure like to be able to take advantage of the free stuff.

2

Have you tried leaving them in cold water? That perks up most vegetables.

3

I’ve cooked with limp rhubarb – it’s about all we get here in the sub-tropics :(. Never had a problem and I’ve never heard that anything leaches from the leaves into the stalks if you don’t trim them immediately.

4

Another vote for chopping off the leaves and soaking the stalks in cold water to crisp them.

5

It appears the SDMB can answer all my needs. My boss at the cafe where I am the baker has had several requests for rhubarb pie. I have found dozens of recipes online, can anyone here who likes rhubarb give me pointers, or point me to the best recipe?

I’ve worked with a lot of baked items, gooseberries even, but rhubarb is one I haven’t dealt with yet. Thanks!!!

6

The best pie incorporating rhubarb that I have ever had was at a restaurant in Queensland. It was essentially a deep dish apple and rhubarb pie with brandy used to cook the fruit. Instead of a shortcrust pastry lid the pie had a thick crumble topping.

This recipe seems along the right lines. I would blind bake the shell while making the filling, then assemble and crisp up the crumble. I don’t know about the cornstarch either I would use arrowroot if I were thickening a fruit mixture. I often top pies with a crumble mix (even savoury pies) just choose anything that goes with the pies contents. For fruit pies you can use biscuits, breakfast cereals, dried fruits, desiccated coconut …just about anything. Pies made like this look really good with a slice cut out to show off the guts of the pie.

7

www.allrecipes.com has some good options, and I find the ratings and comments from people who have tried the recipes to be a real help.

The recipe I used called for both tapioca and cornstarch as thickeners. I used both, as called for.

I made a rhubarb-rasberry crisp with the first (crisp) batch of rhubarb. The color was just beautiful, with the golden crisp on top and the bright red fruit bubbling up.